Minesweeper--an anthology
by Fluffy the Pitbull
Summary: Tales from the inside of a tragic modern pastime. Sorry, but some of the reviews got messed up & say chapter 1 when they're for other chapters.
1. A Personal Saga

  
  
The computer is turned on, and everyone in the waiting room tenses up. Start, programs, accessories, games, minesweeper. We issue into the glass room looking out over the minefield, but a safe distance away. Beginner. The first unlucky sweeper is chosen. But which, I cannot help asking myself, is really worse. To be sent out to risk life and limb, or to sit here, day after day, watching as one's friends are blown into oblivion. 1, 1, space, flag, 2, mine. Another sweeper dead. Not a personal friend this time, but I'd seen him around. I can hear the soft moaning of his family from across the room.  
  
Another sweeper to be chosen. The dead one's mother, I think it is, is wailing. She wants to be next, she cries. Fate does not so easily bend to the wishes of we mortals. I am chosen.   
  
I am on the field, every muscle tense, waiting, waiting to be told what to do, where to go. I can only hope vainly that this round we will be lucky, that I will live to see another day. 1, 1, space, flag, 1, 2, flag, flag, 4, 1, 2. The face beams down at me, looking appropriately anxious at every fresh step I am told to make. Oh, that I were like him. A little dust in the eyes now and then, but no real danger. Only to look down on those he does not care anything about and wish them well. Flag, 1, 1, 1, 2, flag, flag, 2, 2, space, flag, 2. I am so anxious, so fearful. Drops of sweat are building on my brow, and my mouth feels so dry. 2, flag, 2, flag, 2, 1, 1, 1.   
  
Now, one flag left to plant, one mine left unflagged. Two choices. A four, surrounded by three, could make either place its fourth. A two could use either for its second. I can feel the hand waver in indecisivness. "Please," I wisper to this unknown controller, "Be careful in your choice." My orders come. 1, flag. The game is won! I can breath again.  
  
The landscape changes, becomes bigger. Intermediate. A harder field, I again the obedient sweeper. 2, 2, 2, space, flag, 1, space, flag, flag, 1, 2, 2, flag, flag, flag, flag, flag, 2, 2, 3, flag, flag, 3, flag, 2, 2, 2. My anxiety is building again. This person brought us through Beginner, but who knows if they're capable enough for Intermediate? And if we do win this round, what then? Will they press on, into Expert? I don't think they're anywhere near experienced enough for Expert.  
  
The next order is given. I calm my nerves as much as I am able. Flag, 1, space, 2, flag, flag, 4, flag, 2. The next space is just a step ahead. Only 25 mines left out of 40. They got us this far, they can get us to the end.   
  
I step into the next space, and know that the wrong move has been made. Pain, searing pain, up my legs and into my body. Smoke and flames, everywhere. 25 mines gone off together, and I in the thick of it. I begin to feel the pain a little less, I must be dying. I am forced to my knees. Through the haze I can see the yellow face, his eyes screwed up into little X's. He is frowning, looking correctly sad, but I know that he does not really care. I think for a moment of those I am leaving behind. I am sorry for them, but I have no time for that now. I am sorrier for me, and I have not much time left even for that.  
  
I can support myself no longer, and fall face down onto the jagged, disrupted soil. It has to be this way, I groggily remember someone in my past saying--perhaps my mother was the one. It has to be this way, because that is what the computer designers decree. I lie here, feeling the life seep out of me, and I curse the computer designers with all of my heart and with my last breath.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Face talks

Another round. They want another round of minesweeper. As if I didn't have enough dust in my eyes already.   
  
I go back to smiling, as I am expected to. The game begins. At every step the sweeper takes I open my mouth in an O and looked anxious. Then, when it becomes apparent that the step was safe, I go back to smiling that hateful smile.  
  
Oh, what utter boredom is mine (no pun intended). Nobody to talk to, nothing to do. Except, of course, make ridiculously overstated faces. At least it's only beginner level. It won't be too long until it's over, unless they stop and go off and do something else. Once Director left near the end of the game to go to some internet site and left me smiling for an hour at least.  
  
My, my, they actually won Beginner this time. This is the only part I like. Now I get to put on my dark glasses and tone my smile down to a believable level. And no-one else knows it, but I got my glasses upgraded. They play movies now. The movies each run about one minute, so I watch them in pieces. It is my one pleasure in life.  
  
And now they proceed to Intermediate level and I have to put my glasses away, and make those hideous faces again. Ugh.   
  
I wish I could go out and get a different job. An interesting job. But this is my ancestral place, and there's nowhere else for me to go. I want to scream, or at least whisper. I want a companion. Someone to talk to. Someone to relieve the boredom of my existence. I would even settle for talking to Boss, or the one that collects the flags, or the one who keeps the scoreboard, but I am doomed to isolation.  
  
The sweeper takes another step, and the mines explode. I close my eyes tight and frown a very big frown. That's what I have to do. But I am actually pleased, because I managed to avoid getting any dust or dirt in my eyes at all this time.   
  



	3. A Flag's life

The door opens and I and my fellows stiffen and fall instantly silent. I and nine others are chosen. I find this an interesting fact in the light of the way I have been passed over so swiftly recently. But then, I was not in so central a position the other times the collector has been in these last few days. The collector pushes open the door marked MINEFIELD. A nervous-looking sweeper is standing on the edge of the field.  
  
"Here are the flags," the collector says to another, commonly known as Boss. He lifts us up a little in the air to show Boss. Then he puts us into the Depositor. I can see through the glass of the Depositor. The doors are closed, and they can't hear us, they being the sweeper, the collector, Boss, and Face.   
  
The game begins. "That sweeper looks nervous," I comment to a flag next to me.  
  
"Yes. It would be interesting to hear it explained what nervous is exactly."  
  
"Indeed. Look at the sweeper now. He is sweating. That's another sign of being nervous, I am told."  
  
"Where did you hear about what happens when they feel nervous?"  
  
"That sweeper, Jack, the one that found out we could talk. He used to sneak to our closet, and told some of us what they feel when they look that way."  
  
"Yes, I remember Jack. Died, didn't he?"  
  
"Yes. Director got careless about halfway through Beginner." The other flags have been planted during the course of our conversation, and now the one I am talking with is taken down and planted. I sit and reflect that the game is nearly over, and it looks as if it is being won. Then I am taken down and planted. The game is won and we are taken up again, as thirty others are added to our midst. I find myself next to the flag I have just been talking to.   
  
"Look, now the sweeper does not look nervous." The other points out.  
  
"Yes," I agree, "I believe they call that 'relieved.'"  
  
"Yes, I surmise that you are right."   
  
"I am often right."  
  
"So am I."  
  
"I should have known. You look intellegent."  
  
"So do you."  
  
"Thank you." It is time for me to be planted now. I am pressed into the soil again by that unseen hand. The one that I was conversing with comes down next, but we can not talk down here anyway.  
  
The sweeper is looking very nervous now, and breathing rather quickly. I wonder if the mines shall be upset soon?  
  
Sure enough, the sweeper is ordered to another spot, takes the step, and sets them off. He looks nervous and something more now. If only I knew the word for it. The Face has a similar expression, but less convincingly.  
  
The field is cleared now, and we flags are taken away to be repaired. I have sustained some small nicks and tears.   
  
I must think of a word for that way they looked after the mines went off, it would surely be a great intellectual advancement... 


	4. Flag monitor

  
New game, still Beginner level. I put up the 10, for 10 flags left to be planted. I stand behind my tinted screen and look out over the field. A flag is planted. Down comes the 10, up goes the 9. Two more flags, in quick succession. 8, 7.   
  
"Hey, Flag-monitor!" Clock-keeper calls to me, "I'll bet you they lose this time!"  
  
"Done!" I call back to him, and hurry to change the 7 for a 6. Scoreboard-keeper wanders into my room.   
  
"Hey, man, what's new?" he asks that as if he thinks there might really be something new, and I change 6 for 5 and 5 for 4.  
  
"Nothing at all. Play is pretty average."  
  
"Yeah. Think they'll win this time?"  
  
"I don't know, but I bet Clock-keeper they would." I change 4 to 3.  
  
"Well, I better get going. Looks like they're wrapping it up," he exits hurriedly, as I change the 3 for 2. Another couple of steps, another flag is planted, and I change the 2 to 1.   
  
A few more moments and I must change the 1 to 0. I look over at Clock-keeper with a grin as the landscape changes to Intermediate and I take down the 0 in favor of a 40.  
  
Clock-keeper is unfazed. "Well they'll lose Intermediate, anyway. I'll bet you, double or nothing."  
  
"Alright," I say, and I have to laugh. What are we betting? Double or nothing *of* nothing. Neither of us have anything to bet. But at least it is something to do. I change 40 to 39. The pathetic sweeper takes two more steps, 39 changes to 38, then to 37.  
  
I try to think of something, to amuse myself. 36, 35, 34, 33, 32. Maybe Boss or Flag-collector will have something interesting to say after the computer is off again, but it is doubtful. Their jobs are no more exciting that mine. 31, 30, I wish there were something to spice my job up. 29. I yawn and stretch. I wish Director were not so unimaginative. 28. There are options. Director could change it to black an white now and then. 27, 26. Or play a custom game from time to time. 25.   
  
Oh, now they've lost, and I've lost my bet. I glance over at Clock-keeper, who is grinning. Well, I'm glad it amuses him. Not like it matters for anything.  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
